Emma Cohen, Senior Marketing Manager, ODI
Applications opened on 28 June 2022 for the third and final MediaFutures accelerator and residency programme – the UK’s Open Data Institute (ODI) is a partner in the organising consortium.
Startups, SMEs, artists and artistic companies (as well as groups of individuals) have until 30 August 2022 (09:00 BST/10:00 CEST) to apply for up to €80,000 equity-free funding for ideas which address the issues of online misinformation and disinformation, and which question the impact of data and technology on individuals and society.
A reminder of the three MediaFutures tracks
MediaFutures has three programme tracks open for applications:
- Startups for Citizens: a six-month accelerator programme for startups to build a product or service that encourages novel, meaningful ways to engage with media content
- Startup meets Artist: a six-month mixed residency and accelerator support programme for teams of startups and artists, to collaboratively develop new ideas around data technology and the arts
- Artists for Media: a six-month residency programme for standalone artists or artistic companies with an innovative concept, to explore data and technology and its impact on individuals and society
All tracks will benefit from a training programme and other support (including mentoring and training) offered from across the MediaFutures partner network.
(As a reminder of previous entries, check out all the graduated projects from the first two open calls here.)
Encouraging equality, diversity and inclusion throughout the process
Applications for this third and final open call are being encouraged from groups who are not as well-represented in the art and start-up worlds – or face additional barriers to entry – such as refugees, those from ethnic minorities, women and non-binary individuals, the LGBTQ+ community, those with disabilities and those from low- or middle-income countries.
MediaFutures strives to ensure that all applicants have a fair and equal opportunity to progress through the application process. Part of this is our aim to incorporate sufficient experience and expertise into the evaluation process, ensuring that evaluators have the relevant artistic, business and/or technical expertise for each MediaFutures track.
In addition to this, we want our evaluators to reflect the diverse experiences and representations of potential applicants, in order to provide an inclusive and equitable experience for all.
Helping support recruitment of external evaluators
Alongside evaluators from the MediaFutures partner organisations, we also work with a number of external evaluators to support the application process (you can read about our evaluators for the second open call here).
To enable us to incorporate even more diverse experience in the MediaFutures evaluation process, we are looking to increase the number of external evaluators for the third open call. We recognise the value that external evaluators bring (and the time and commitment that this can take), so to aid this process, MediaFutures has set up a fund to support external evaluators with great experience who cannot otherwise afford to participate in our evaluation process.
Interested in becoming a MediaFutures evaluator?
If you’re interested in becoming a MediaFutures evaluator for the third open call – or want to find out more about the external evaluators fund – we’d love to hear from you. Please get in touch with Tara Lee or Darren Temple from the ODI at mediafutures@theodi.org by Friday 22 July 2022 to express your interest.